French doctor urges caution over no-prescription Covid tests

A senior medical union in France has called for restraint when it comes to making Covid-19 tests available without prescription, after President Macron suggested the measure in his TV speech yesterday (July 14).

Connexion journalist

Published Wednesday 15 July 2020 - 13:03 Modified Wednesday 15 July 2020 - 13:03

Mr Macron suggested that PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests could be made available for the general public to buy and take in pharmacies, even without a medical prescription.

The President said: 鈥淭here could be the possibility, for all people, without a medical prescription, to go and get tested, even if they do not have symptoms.鈥�

PCR tests tell whether the patient has the virus SARS-Cov-2 (which causes Covid-19) at the time of the test.

This is in contrast to blood tests, which look for antibodies in the weeks after the infection. Rapid blood tests are now already available to buy without prescription in pharmacies.

Calls for caution

But Fran莽ois Blanchecotte, president of biologist union le Syndicat des Biologistes, called for caution over the idea of making PCR tests available in this way.

He said that other testing methods might be preferable in future, to avoid overwhelming the system and using the PCR tests for no real reason - and even potentially causing there to be a lack of tests for people who really need them (e.g. if they have symptoms), or if there is a rise in cases in future.

He told : 鈥淲e must both respond to the worry of the public, but also keep our cool, in the sense that we have to be proactive if the epidemic continues even more than it is today.

鈥淲e will have to see with [reimbursement system] l鈥橝ssurance Maladie how we can make this work. We should probably prioritise people who have real symptoms, overall.鈥�

He added that the 鈥渞eal worry鈥� is that making the tests widely available could mean more anxious people might come to get regular tests - using up resources - without any real medical reason.

He said: 鈥淲e have experimented in towns where we have tested 4,000; 5,000; 10,000 people...and we found only two or three positives.鈥�

Professor Blanchecotte said that instead of relying on pharmacy PCR tests (which are done with a long cotton-bud-like swab by a medical administrator or pharmacist), the public might in future use at-home testing kits, using saliva, and taken by the patient themselves.

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